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Monthly Archives: November 2008

We took a break over Thanksgiving and went to Sun River. It was beautiful (and cold) Back on Sunday to get a little closer to being ready to pour the foundation/floor.

You can see in the picture above the center stake set in concrete. We placed the cupola ring in place to help line up the angles for the placement of some of the brackets that will get set in concrete. The stake will extend above the level of the finished floor. When we go to pour, a steel cable will be attached to the stake and used to properly align the brackets. If you look at the plan, you will see that the cupola will be centered over the end of the kitchen counter. This is pretty much the center of the “Great” room.

We will continue to putter around the property waiting for the alignment of the weather gods and concrete contractor’s schedule.

One of six concrete piers that will add support to the retaining walls.

Just in time before the next wave of rain storms, Doug, from RK Concrete showed up with a concrete pumper truck to fill our pier forms. The cardboard column forms are made out of cardboard and probably would not have survived another soaking.

The Tri-Agg concrete truck arrived right on time after Doug had the pump and hoses set up. He then proceeded to fill the SonoTubes with a little help from me dragging the heavy hoses around the site.

As is often the case, there is usually a bit of concrete left over. Planning for that, Jeff and I built a form to make concrete blocks. We will probably use these for a future raised garden bed.

It looks like we are in for another long winter rain storm. I’m not sure how long it will delay us on moving forward with the rest of the foundation. We will just have to wait until we get another dry spell.

Today we had some help from our friend Miguel who is an exchange student from Portugal. He and Jeff placed plastic vapor barrier under the rebar of the footings. They then put pieces of cement bricks under the rebar to hold it off the ground. The rest of the floor area will be covered with a combination vapor barrier/insulation material

Here I am bending rebar into small squares for the pier column supports.

After nearly two weeks of constant rain, the clouds have parted and the sun has come out. It’s an absolutely gorgeous weekend and we plan to get a lot of work done.

Over a month ago we drilled six pier holes for extra support at the ends of the retaining walls. After weeks of rain, the cardboard SonoTubes that we placed in the holes are starting to get a little mushy but hopefully they will get filled with concrete next Monday. But first we must fabricate the rebar “cages” that will go into the holes.I set up a jig to assemble the cages. Below, Jeff is using a rebar spinner to tie the straight sticks to the square supports.

There’s still quite a few “loose ends” that must be taken care of before we can pour the foundation/slab. Below, Jeff is tying some of the cross supports that go into the perimeter foundation rebar. (In the foreground is the flange for the toilet in the master bathroom.)

Well, it’s been raining pretty much non-stop for the last week. We took the opportunity during a break in the rain to finish putting in the rest of the electrical conduit that goes under the slab. Most of the rebar is in place and we are pretty much ready to pour concrete. All we need now is a spell of dry weather. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like the rains will stop anytime soon so our pour date of next week has been postponed.

Here Jeff is taping up the exposed ends of the conduit that will later have our wiring running through it.